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Cang Jie is one of the legendary figures in ancient China. As legends foretold, he was inspired by the footprints of animals on the ground, and began to create all kinds of different symbols according to the forms of all things in nature, hoping to replace the conventional, yet unreliable, knot tying way of remembering things. For conveniences, Jie decides to name these symbols “Zi”, which means “character”. This is the origin of “Hanzi”, the “character from Han dynasty”.
In Hànzì, players travel back 3600 years and serve as one of the pupils of Master Cang Jie. As you learn from the Master, you will create new characters that serve as the foundation of modern Chinese culture.
In game terms, you lay out double-sided cards on the table that show the old letters on one side and the newer traditional letters on the other. On a turn, you choose a task card that shows a theme and score points by identifying two of the many kanji that match your theme from among the old letters. Whoever first earns ten points wins.
Ages | 7+ |
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Players | 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players, 5 Players |
Play Time | 15m – 30m |
Designer | Nightsorrow Chou |
Mechanics | Push Your Luck, Pattern Recognition |
Theme | Card Game, Memory, Mythology |
Publisher | Deep Water Games, EmperorS4 |
JerryKChiang
Fairly light memory game with educational theme mixed in with some minor game elements. Fun for classrooms and younger audiences, though the game would need more cards expansions and some additional mechanics to improve replayability. Great theme and good content for those interested in learning a little about Chinese!
DanielBGC
Played it with grown ups only, rated it a 4. Since it is easy to remember the required cards once you know which symbol is under which card back, it’s no longer a real game. As soon as no one makes mistakes the first player will always win. However with kids from let’s say 7–10 I would rate it a 7. Which makes a solid 5 in average. It is probably important to know that the game has a nice language learning aspect to it, so there is more to it than just a memory game.
Blackrobe3
Fun game. It's a bit of memory and press your luck. However with 2 players you will not make it to the "age 2" mission cards. Experienced players may also have an advantage over newer players given that, despite being a memory game, each memory tile has a unique back. For some of the missions you can easily tell what the matching tiles are based on some educated deduction (the missions have a description that reflects the characters-- for example the "have" mission indicated a curved hand over an item). The variant game does add some spice to gameplay-- and I recommend this after first playing a few times if your party is 2-3 players. Otherwise, the base game seems it will be most enjoyable with 4-5 people, until someone memorizes a majority of the pairs and starts winning too quickly. The developer suggests that, once the age one tiles are memorized, only count age 2 missions for points-- I have not tried that method currently-- if anything it would extend the game length as players will need to clear out age 1 tiles to make the age 2 tiles available...